Partly because of the crisis, partly for reasons we’ll come to in a moment, our production schedule on Skylines has got a bit lax. So the first of this week’s interview, with my pal Claire Cocks in Palermo, about what lockdown, Italian-flavour, looks look is already a little out of date: Italy, unlike the UK, has begun lifting its lockdown.
But it’s still a fascinating insight into both what a stricter lockdown looks like, and also into how great Palermo would be if she were allowed to see it at all – so I’ve kept the interview, but added a brief update about what the situation there is now.
Our second interview is with Hala El Akl, a senior associate at PLP Architecture and chair of the ULI’s UK Urban Art Forum. She tells us exactly why cities should be paying more attention to the role of arts and culture.
Now, the explanation for the lax schedule I mentioned. In case you’ve missed the announcements on social media: Skylines is coming to an end. I’ve handed over the reins at CityMetric to the new editorial team, and the next episode will be number 150 – for those and a host of other reasons, this felt like the right time to stop.
